Ant Hell (1)
'Could it be a Gallagon?'
A faint psychic power was emanating from the intruder. But if it were truly a Gallagon, it would never move this quietly. I crouched low over the nest once more, determined to learn more.
Once I confirmed that the auxiliary organ beneath my jaw had linked with the nest, I concentrated my senses on a single point. Every perception my body could muster poured into the epicenter of the tremor. Sound. Scent. The flow of a peculiar energy. The auxiliary organ, vastly amplified through its bond with the nest and my various traits, drank in all three streams at once, and the refined data it transmitted was swiftly unraveled by Amorph's brain.
'Small but disciplined footfalls. Soldiers. Scent of metal — slightly off. Tools made of a special alloy blended from several metals. And psychic power, carefully concealed.'
Piecing it all together, only one answer remained.
'Cult regulars. A warrior unit, most likely.'
The distance was too great for certainty, but they looked formidable. Judging by their equipment and movement, they were a cut above the warrior squads of the mothership fleet I had encountered back at the Cult's holy world.
'The Temple Guard, or perhaps that Order of the Eye of Revelation. And the one leading them….'
The one who tore through the obstacles blocking the passage by drawing out psychic power. That one was no ordinary figure. At first I assumed he was using some kind of psychic tool to blast through the sealed tunnels, but on closer inspection, that wasn't it at all. He kept his power hidden at all times, releasing only short, precise bursts when they were needed.
'Of everyone I've ever seen, he is the most accomplished wielder of psychic power.'
In all my time in this world, only two beings had handled psychic energy with such mastery. One was No. 26. The other was Code Black, the Eugene Family's Shadow I had fought at the T&C Special Trade Hub.
And this one, on his own, easily surpassed them both.
'At that level, he's practically Black Gallagon-tier.'
A Cult elite force that included a warrior strong enough to put me on guard. They had moved as one group — until, at a fork in the passage, they split into three.
Still, the enemies splitting up was no cause for relief. All three parties were making for the place where the nest lay.
'They're looking for us.'
Otherwise there'd be no reason to burrow through solid ice tunnels like this.
"What is the matter?"
Sensing the shift in my demeanor, PS-111 posed the question.
"We have Cult intruders. Judging by their heading, they're coming this way."
"I detect nothing of the sort. However, if your statement is accurate, they are likely the Cult group that has settled within the Black Gallagon's territory."
"What?"
"That Cult group arrived on this planet 29 days ago. Their current camp lies within the Gallagon's domain."
My heart dropped like a stone.
To a Gallagon, its territory was a hunting ground — a place of vital importance, used not merely to take prey but by adults to teach hatchlings the art of the hunt. That the Cult had been allowed free passage through such a place could only mean one thing: the Gallagons and this Cult group were in league.
An unidentified Cult powerhouse, and a Black Gallagon — an APEX occupying the upper-middle tier of that fearsome category. Fighting both at once, in my current state, would be utter folly.
"Don't tell me the Black Gallagon sent the Cult this way?"
"That may be so. It may not."
"What is that supposed to mean?"
When I pressed for a clearer answer, the machine began to explain in detail.
"According to the reports of other intermediate terminals, the Gallagon pride is currently in a state of schism."
"A schism? Wait — a succession challenge?"
"Correct. The second-ranked White Gallagon has challenged the Black Gallagon."
"A White Gallagon issued the challenge? That's bizarre. There's no way it could win unless it matured into a Black Gallagon first."
The gap between a White Gallagon and a Black Gallagon was the difference between heaven and earth. A Black Gallagon was powerful enough to slaughter five White Gallagons attacking in unison in a single stroke. Every other Gallagon understood this gulf all too well, which was why none would follow a White until it had ascended to black.
"That would ordinarily be true. However, the White Gallagon is pressing its challenge at the head of multiple Gallagon prides."
"Set that aside for now — it doesn't matter. What does a succession war have to do with a Cult group?"
"The second-ranked one's pride is hostile to the Cult. Gallagons supporting the challenger have also been observed attacking the Cult's members."
"Hm."
Hearing it laid out like that, I could grasp the situation. It was a tangled affair, but the intruders and the Black Gallagon occupied some ambiguous middle ground — allies of circumstance rather than conviction.
"So the Black Gallagon isn't aiding the Cult. They simply share this ground for their own reasons. The bond is looser than I feared."
"Correct. The Cult groups, for their part, have taken no action to assist the Black Gallagon."
Even so, I couldn't let myself feel certain. Now that this place had been exposed, the plain fact remained: we were in danger.
I severed the link with the nest and woke everyone who had been sleeping. Then I explained the whole situation to their bleary, weary faces.
｢Cult warriors? What would they want here?｣
[Zzzzzt — zzt-zzt (No idea.)]
｢…If a Black Gallagon-tier powerhouse is mixed in with them, this won't be an easy fight. We have to get out of here.｣
Having heard me out, Mother of the Sky proposed abandoning the nest. She had a point — the Cult force that had put me on edge was led by someone at or above the rank of High Priest, with dozens of elite Cult warriors in tow. Retreat first, assess, then fight: that was her logic.
｢Kin｣｢Scent｣｢Similar｣｢Danger｣｢Very｣｢Dangerous｣
Adhai, sensing the psychic power closing in by the moment, agreed with Mother of the Sky. The way her four-horned head kept twitching back and forth looked distinctly uneasy.
｢PS-111. Do you have any data on this Cult group's strength?｣
"The matter was handled by another intermediate terminal, so my information is limited. Judging from what data I do possess, they are estimated to be psychic users surpassing a High Priest of the Cult Empire. I therefore recommend flight."
PS-111, her disembodied head floating serenely, had chosen escape as well.
｢Anyone who picks on my family is a bad person, and bad people all need to be scolded!｣
Only No. 26 proposed standing and fighting instead of running. Her sense of duty to protect her family ran that deep. She would lay down her own life before she let anyone here come to harm.
One by one, they laid out their opinions — then all eyes turned to me. A wordless declaration that whatever I decided, they would follow.
'What's the right call?'
Escape had the most votes, but I couldn't choose rashly.
They had pinpointed our location from a great distance — underground, no less — and were already in pursuit. That told me the enemy possessed some kind of tracking method.
'Fleeing to another location would be pointless.'
Until that tracking method was neutralized — or their legs tied — nowhere we ran would be safe. And what if this was their plan all along, to herd us into a kill zone? Then running would mean walking straight into their trap of our own accord.
'And there's another problem besides.'
Adhai and Mother of the Sky were both vulnerable to the cold. If a blizzard rolled in again after we surfaced, their combat strength would plummet.
'And if we fight here instead?'
Battling them underground had its own trade-offs. The advantage was that the nest was already laid, letting me deploy every nest-related trait at full power — I could fight with the nest's support, just as I had against Muriel. The others knew the terrain around here like the backs of their hands, so the fighting itself would suffer little. And the lightless, ink-black dark was a bonus in its own right.
'But there are drawbacks too.'
First, in this cramped underground space it would be hard to play my strongest cards — the Bone Beast and King of Monsters transformations. Unless the cavern was as vast as the one where I'd fought the Ice Horror, my movements would be badly constrained.
'And the ice ceiling is already unstable from the battle with that thing.'
One more heavy shock down here and the frozen plain above could come crashing down entirely. In my transformed state I could probably withstand a ceiling of several-hundred-meter-thick ice collapsing on my head — but the others could not.
'Wait. Hold on.'
Suddenly, a rather good idea came to me. My mind ground through the problem at a furious pace, and a plan took shape. At last, I made my decision.
[Zzzzzzt — zzt (We catch them here.)]
｢Are you sure about this?｣
Deep worry saturated the thought-wave Mother of the Sky sent me. Fair enough — she understood as well as I did that we'd have no way back from this.
I met each of their gazes in turn, then rapidly laid out the plan I had just built.
｢Wow! Hunting prey with Big Baby after so long! This'll be fun!｣
｢Agree｣｢Exciting｣
｢…That devilish streak of yours never changes.｣
"A fascinating plan. However, the risk involved is far from negligible. We require a method of raising the probability of success."
[Zzzt — zzt zzzzzt zzt zzzzzt (I have something to say about that. Follow me.)]
I picked PS-111 up between my fingers, gathered the backpack holding our weapons, and left the nest behind.
"You said you wanted to devour the Blood Reavers, didn't you?"
"Correct. Three units would allow me to restore and enhance my combat functions."
I pulled one deactivated Blood Reaver from the backpack.
"I can't place my complete trust in you. And this Blood Reaver is something I need as well."
"But a single unit is insufficient. Reconstructing a body incorporating the Blood Reaver's traits will require a massive quantity of organic resources."
"And couldn't those resources be supplied in the form of living creatures?"
"I do not comprehend your meaning."
Instead of answering, I activated the Tooth Fairy Nest. From the pores scattered between my flanks and my dorsal plates, small flesh-eating fleas came wriggling and crawling out into the open.
"I'll supply the resources your reconstruction requires myself."
"An extremely efficient energy supply solution. Impressive."
So PS-111 was impressed. I handed her the Blood Reaver.
Her mouth gaped open like a man whose jaw had come unhinged. Thin tubes came spilling out, coiled around the Blood Reaver, and dragged it down into her depths.
"Kirik. Blood Reaver. Absorption, complete. Kirik. Organic matter for bodily reconstruction. Kirik. Absorption, initiating. Kirik."
PS-111's body — having devoured both the Blood Reaver and the Tooth Fairies — began to twist and writhe. I watched her contort into something far more grotesque than before, and smiled.
Deep within the frozen structure, where the air itself was steeped in killing cold, a column of figures was on the move.
Despite temperatures that would freeze an unprotected man solid, they wore nothing but scale-patterned bodysuits. That they braved such a hostile environment in such light armament was a testament to who they were: psychic users of the highest caliber. Anyone sensitive to psychic energy would have noticed the faint violet aura shimmering across every one of their bodies.
Ivory bodysuits. Horns of every description rising from their temples.
The ones walking the frozen subterranean passage were the Temple Guard of the Cult Empire.
Only warriors whose prowess had been proven within the Empire itself could earn a place in the Temple Guard. Their charge was to shield the great figures of the realm and to exterminate whatever threatened the Empire's peace. The only force in the Empire whose might rivaled theirs was the Order of the Eye of Revelation, an appendage of the Prophet Assembly.
And warriors of that caliber were pressing forward now, faces carved from stone.
"Lady Aliya… does Lord Jason distrust us?"
"Idle chatter during a mission is forbidden."
At the Yak-horned leader's icy reprimand, the warrior fell silent. It was not a tone a subordinate deserved, but Aliya let it pass. She harbored no small grievances of her own about this situation.
'I know full well the Three-Headed Demon is a dangerous creature, but….'
Ever since Jason had descended into these depths under Gallagon escort, he had been wound tighter than she had ever seen him. She was his personal bodyguard and his lover, and even she had never witnessed him like this.
And to the Temple Guard, that display was nothing short of an insult. It read as doubt — as though he questioned their competence.
The Temple Guard existed to hunt the monsters that preyed upon the Empire. With captured beasts numbering in the hundreds, in the thousands, they were, by any measure, experts in the business of killing monsters.
Granted, this quarry was a foe among foes — one that had annihilated an Imperial Carrier and an entire mothership fleet. It likely ranked among the five most dangerous creatures the Guard had ever faced.
But every Cultist present was ready to stake their life on this fight.
'There's no way Jason doesn't know that.'
And it went further. Her lover had made a request of the Temple Guard that she could scarcely comprehend.
'If the battle turns against us — kill yourselves?'
He seemed not to entertain even the possibility that the Guard might prevail. Worse, he had issued explicit instructions on how to die. If they fell to the creature, he said, they must on no account leave their heads behind.
He had gone so far as to tell them that, should death seem certain, they were to focus their psychic power into their own brains and detonate it.
'But why?'
In Cult society, suicide was treated as taboo unless it was a sacrifice offered for a sacred purpose. To end one's life for private reasons was to rebel against the workings of the great Providence itself.
She had asked him separately over telepathy, but he refused to explain. You wouldn't understand even if I told you, he'd said. Just kill yourselves.
When a High Priest — among the most honored souls in the Empire — behaved this way, even the proud Temple Guard could not help but feel their morale sag.
Split at the fork into three companies of twelve apiece, the warriors' resentment refused to die down. Aliya had issued a short warning, but their eyes still smoldered with hostility toward Jason's disgraceful conduct.
"Lady Aliya! Movement detected ahead!"
At the scout's sharp cry, every weapon came out at once.
"……."
"……."
Their feet moved in swift silence, but in the telepathic world of their linked minds, conversation raged without pause.
'Jaxtal, Nesian — take the ceiling. The enemy may strike from above.'
'Starbran, Billone — hold the front. Brenz and I will cover the rear.'
'Thern, something is interfering with the telepathic link. Run a diagnostic.'
'Understood.'
Ordinary warrior squads relied on amplification helmets to sustain their telepathic links. The Temple Guard, by contrast, was trained to hold full conversation with one another unaided — so that no gap could ever be exploited mid-battle.
Moving in flawless coordination, the squad entered a cavern of considerable size. Four tunnels branched off into the dark, and beyond that there appeared to be nothing remarkable about the place at all.
'Which way?'
'The radio interference is scrambling the cave survey. We can't map the underground network.'
'The enemy must be close. All of you — stay sharp.'
Weapons raised, they advanced slowly, sweeping their surroundings. They were most of the way across the cavern, nearing the four branches, when Aliya felt something off.
'Hm?'
It was a sense of wrongness — qualitatively different from anything before. She scanned the area, but there was nothing to see. Only ice and rock gone black with darkness.
But Aliya was a veteran, and she forced herself to think through why she felt that way.
Before long, the answer surfaced.
'The smell!'
This cavern smelled different from every stretch of frozen tunnel they had walked until now. Which meant something of unknown composition was mixed into the very air.
The instant she grasped it, Aliya fired off a desperate telepathic scream.
'All of you, activate your Dragon Scale suits — NOW!'
But the moment the command left her mind, dozens of movements erupted from the ground around their feet. And from beneath the earth, grotesque creatures the size of a Cultist's head burst upward in a single, shrieking wave.
"Ambush!"
"All units, engage!"
The warriors countered the flying horrors without a heartbeat's delay. Spears and longswords cleaved monster and air alike; arrows and rounds punched through their skulls. With reactions as fast as lightning falling from a clear sky, the squad cut down dozens of the creatures in the space of a breath.
'What in Providence are these things?'
'Lord Jason called them spawn. Young birthed by the Three-Headed Demon.'
Hearing that, one of the Guard picked up a monster's corpse. It resembled a chafer beetle sheathed in black carapace — except that around its face, row upon row of growths shaped like human teeth had erupted from the shell.
The sheer grotesquerie of the thing wrung a curse from him.
"Godsdamned hideous little—"
He stopped mid-swear. Through the vision shared by the Soul Link, he had just seen something behind him.
Beside his shoulder.
"Kikik."
Where there should have been only deep, lightless dark, there was a face — white as fresh snow.
'Look out!'
"Huh?"
The thing — wearing the face of a human woman — unhinged its mouth like a serpent's jaw. Inside that blood-red maw, hundreds upon thousands of teeth stood packed in dense, gleaming rows.
Then came the sound of bone being crushed, right beside his ear. It was the last thing he would ever remember.
"Brenz is down!"
"Counterattack! Now!"
The monster — a human woman's head grafted onto the bloated body of a colossal worm — clamped its jaws around Brenz's skull and fled. It skittered up the wall on a tangle of writhing legs with a hideous, scrambling gait, and vanished into one of the four branching tunnels.
"Kikik, kikik, kikik, kikik, kikik, kikik, kikik."
From beyond the pitch-black passage, only that taunting laughter echoed back — bone-chilling in the dark.
"Damn it all! We hunt it down! Form ranks!"
"La — Lady Aliya? Billone is gone."
"What?"
At the warrior's words, Aliya frantically swept the Soul Link.
He was right. Of the eleven remaining links, one was moving abnormally fast — tearing away from them.
While Brenz was being taken, Billone — the rearguard of the front line — had been abducted.
'Don't tell me—'
The Three-Headed Demon. The quarry they had come to kill.
That demon had allies.
This frozen maze, at this very moment, did not hold them alone.